Fiona McArthur - Delivering Love

‘I believe in holistic midwifery—which is the use of all techniques that can help the clients,’ Poppy said. ‘What’s your problem with that?’

They glared at each other, and she watched Jake’s eyes narrow.

‘Hocus pocus, Poppy. Natural doesn’t automatically mean safe. There is no scientific proof that these methods work—and I think it’s dangerous. When something goes wrong it’s my conventional medicine that’s going to save them.’

By the time he finished his tirade his voice had risen.

‘I’m not deaf, Jake. On the surface, your arguments are old school and nothing I can’t demolish. But there’s something deeper and more personal in this explosion of emotion. What experiences have you had with alternative therapies?’ She gentled her voice. She didn’t want to cause him pain. Wasn’t even sure of the reaction she might get, let alone the fallout—but it was too late.

Fiona McArthuris Australian and lives with her husband and five sons on the Mid-North Coast of New South Wales. Her interests are writing, reading, playing tennis, e-mail and discovering the fun of computers—of course that’s when she’s not watching the boys play competition cricket, football or tennis. She loves her work as a part-time midwife in a country hospital, facilitates antenatal classes and enjoys the company of young mothers in a teenage pregnancy group.

Now that her youngest son has started school Fiona has more time for writing and is looking forward to the challenge of improving her craft. DELIVERING LOVE is her first novel.

Fiona McArthur

www.millsandboon.co.uk

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To my Dad—my first hero.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

‘CAESAREAN birth, seventeen-ten,’ the scout nurse intoned. Everyone glanced at the clock as the baby was delivered into the world. Nobody spoke. The theatre staff at Midcoast Hospital, New South Wales, were too busy willing the baby to move.

The child lay tinged with blue and still, across his mother’s green-draped stomach.

Come on, Baby , Poppy McCrae urged silently as she moved into action. This was why she was here. She knew how resilient babies were once they had oxygen and the stimulation of the outside world.

Her gloved fingers directed the tiny suction tube to gently clear his mouth and nose as Dr Gates clamped and severed the ropy link between the baby and his mother.

Poppy gathered the tiny human to her chest and carried him to the resuscitation trolley. How he responded in the next five minutes would indicate his oxygen depletion.

Her elbow knocked the clock timer to keep track of time since birth and she positioned him on his back with his head towards her. She briskly rubbed the infant’s damp skin with a warmed towel. Sometimes, towelling would be enough to stimulate a baby to breathe. His little limbs wobbled slackly with her movements and Poppy winced. Twenty seconds since birth.

She reached for the stethoscope and listened for his heartbeat, heard the newborn’s slow steady beating in her ears and exhaled in relief. A sluggish beat was much better than no beat at all.

Placing the mask firmly over his nose and mouth, she gently squeezed oxygen into the tiny lungs with short puffs from the bag. Poppy nodded slightly at the way his chest rose and fell as she squeezed the bag.

One minute since birth. It felt like ten. His heart rate was better at just under a hundred beats a minute. She glanced up at the scrub-room window. Still nobody there. She frowned. Where was this new paediatrician?

‘Do it, Baby. Wake up and smell everybody sweating.’ She rubbed the infant again and continued puffing oxygen through the mask, noting the faint improvement in his skin colour.

‘You’re a dawdler, but you’re working on it. Good boy.’ She patted him.

The operating-theatre doors whooshed open and Poppy looked up briefly in relief. A tall figure, masked and gowned, strode over to the resuscitaire.

‘Dr Sheppard. Paediatrician. How long since birth?’

The previous week’s speculation about him was unimportant now and she glanced at the timer ticking away. ‘Two minutes, Doctor.’ They still didn’t know why the baby had become distressed during labour, and Poppy prayed there was no birth defect causing the problem.

She swapped places so he could stand at the baby’s head. ‘Slow foetal heart rate since admission and decreased foetal movement. Stunned at birth. No respiratory effort as yet, although pinking up slightly with bagging. Heart rate just under a hundred now.’

Poppy kept her gaze on the baby’s chest as it rose and fell with each squeeze of the black rubber bag.

‘How long was the labour and how much pethidine did the mother have?’

‘Less than four hours before the midwife noticed a sudden change in foetal heartbeat. As for the other...’ Poppy smiled at the memory of the baby’s earth mother and looked up at him ‘...we don’t use pain relief like pethidine very often here. The only drugs on board come from the anaesthetic. The baby was supposed to be born at home.’

She saw Dr Sheppard narrow his eyes and grimace. Great. She gritted her teeth. He’s not sympathetic to home births. She’d have to work on that. Later.

‘Hmm,’ was all he said. ‘Now, Baby, we’ll pop a little tube down your throat to help you breathe for a few minutes, and if you’re very good I’ll take it out again shortly.’

He listened to the infant’s chest and then took over the bagging so that Poppy could prepare the equipment. As she placed each object on top of the trolley she couldn’t help noticing how gentle his large hands were as he handled the newborn.

His voice rumbled on a deeper note as he spoke to the baby, and Poppy felt as if a cool breeze had somehow eddied into Theatre and blown across her neck. She shrugged off the thought that the cadences in his speech were niggling her as familiar, but she had to admit he had a great voice.

Not since her big city hospital training had Poppy felt so attuned during resuscitation, and she wordlessly placed the laryngoscope into his upturned palm. As she watched the diminutive patient lie flaccidly under his care, she sensed the anxiety of the other staff. There was none of the usual conversation.

The first signs of response started to appear. Poppy welcomed the lightening of weight in her own chest as, with each puff of the bag, the baby’s skin colour washed pinker from the oxygen. With the tiniest movements, the baby began to twitch and move.

Go for it, Baby! Poppy urged the little boy on in her mind. His plump hands clenched and the tiny toes spread as if in answer.

Relief washed over her like incoming surf. His little face grimaced and his chest fluttered as he struggled to breathe for himself.

Poppy sighed with relief. Any second now. She positioned the oxygen mask back over the baby’s face as Dr Sheppard removed the tube to allow the infant to breathe for himself.